Category: Corona Virus

Read: All the presidents lies about the coronavirus

Those lessons, however, were long delayedin part because predicting the next pandemic is hard business, and support for infectious-disease preparedness was leaning elsewhere. Both SARS and its far deadlier coronavirus cousin, Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), were understood to be threats. But other coronaviruses cause the common cold, and the SARS and MERS outbreaks each burned out in less than a year. When cases of those diseases fell off, public-health responders shifted to other viral emergencies such as Ebola and Zika, and coronavirus research funding dropped sharply.

That left many investigators who had been working on therapies for SARS holding the bageven as laboratories around the world were reporting ominous findings. A number of SARS-like coronaviruses in bats, they had discovered, were only a few simple mutations away from being able to infect human cells.

Whether the world should have heeded the warnings of coronavirus specialists is, of course, a matter of hindsight. But to some experts whose business it is to hunt potential pathogens before they spill over into human populations, the many years spent not girding for a serious coronavirus outbreak were tragicallyand unnecessarilywasted.

We were out there on the ground after SARS, working on coronaviruses with Chinese colleagues in collaboration, said Peter Daszak, president of the EcoHealth Alliance, a New Yorkbased nonprofit group that took part in a large federally funded effort, called Predict, to hunt for new pandemic viruses in wildlife in 31 countries, including China. That program was famously defunded last fall, just before the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak began.

But we were the only group of western scientists, Daszak added. How can we be the only people looking for these viruses when there was such a clear and present danger?

The coronavirus research community has always been small, friendly, and interactive. A cul-de-sac at the end of the road of virology, said Buchmeier, whos been studying coronaviruses since 1980. Scientists were drawn to the field by a shared fascination: Coronaviruses had evolved strategies unlike any other in the microbial world to protect themselves from genetic errors during replication.

Coronaviruses may induce lethal infections in certain animal species, particularly cats and pigs. But their reputation in human medicine had long been one of being wimpy viruses that cause only mild disease, said Albert Osterhaus, founding director of the Research Center for Emerging Infections and Zoonoses in Hanover, Germany. So when SARS emerged in late 2002, there was initially general disbelief among medical people that a coronavirus could be the basis of such a huge outbreak.

As that epidemic spread, an influx of new researchers crowded the field. More grants were awarded, and funding started to climb. Everyone wanted to know where the virus had come from, said Ralph Baric, a microbiologist at the University of North Carolinas Gillings School of Global Public Health. Initial findings pointed to wild civets and raccoon dogs sold for meat and pelts, respectively, in Chinese markets. Later evidence began to implicate horseshoe bats as the original source of the infections. Some researchers whose pre-SARS careers had been grounded in basic coronavirus biology began working on therapies and vaccinesand they made steady progress for several years.

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Coronavirus Researchers Tried to Warn Us - The Atlantic

Although we do not yet know the effect of more recent events on the course of the pandemic, or what exactly will happen in the coming weeks and months, the list of culprits will likely be even longer than that.

If the virus wins, it may also be because Derek Chauvin kept his knee on George Floyds neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds as Floyd was pleading for his life, setting off protests thatas righteous as they arecould well result in mass infections.

If the virus wins, it may also be because 1,200 public-health experts obfuscated the mortal risk that these mass protests would pose to the most vulnerable among us by declaring not only (as would be reasonable) that they supported them as citizens, but also (which is highly implausible) that they had determined, as scientists, that they would actively serve the national public health.

If the virus wins, it may also be because so many states moved to reopen before getting the pace of infections under control.

If the virus wins, it may also be because the right-wing-media echo chamber is starting to downplay the risk that a second wave poses to Americans.

If the virus does win, then, it is because American elites, experts, and institutions have fallen shortand continue to fall shortof the grave responsibility with which they are entrusted in ways too innumerable to list.

About a month ago, I started to write a very different article. Is it possible, I wondered, that with the benefit of hindsight, this cruel period will seem rather more heroic than is obvious to its contemporaries? One thing is clear: If we had let the virus rip through the population unchecked, the consequences would have been unspeakable. But ifa big ifwe manage to contain the pandemic, and avert millions of deaths, it would constitute one of the greatest achievements in human history.

Hoping to publish the article in The Atlantic, I kept waiting for the situation in the United States to recover sufficiently to justify my guarded optimism. But that moment never arrived. Now it feels more remote than ever.

Read: Americas patchwork pandemic is fraying even further

We were on the brink of doing something incredible. And much of the credit for that would have gone to the many ordinary citizens who lived up to their moral responsibility in an extraordinary moment.

Scientists have desperately searched for a vaccine. Despite the real risks to their health, doctors, nurses, cooks, cleaners, and clerical staff have reported for duty in their hospitals. Suddenly declared essential, workers who have long enjoyed little respect and low wages helped to keep society afloat.

For the rest of us, the order of the day was simply to stay at home and slow the spread. It was a modest task, which made it all the more galling that some people fell short. But this nitpick obscures how many people did do what they could to get us all through the crisis: They checked in with their relatives and cooked for the elderly. They took to their balconies to thank health-care workers or sang songs to cheer up the neighbors. By and large, they stayed at home and slowed the spread.

Thanks to the effort of millions of people, we were close to a great success story. But because of the failures of Trump and Chauvin, of the CDC and the WHO, of public-health experts and Fox News hosts, we are, instead, likely to give upand tolerate that hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens will die needless deaths.

Pandemics reveal the true state of a society. Ours has come up badly wanting.

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The Virus Will Win - The Atlantic

When I was 8 years old, just about all I could think of was how I was going to die that day.

No, I didn't grow up in the middle of a war zone, though many others on the other side of the world were living through that kind of nightmare in 1996.

I was born and raised in a safe, small town in Idaho where murder was a rarity. It wouldn't be a gun, a child predator, or a car accident that killed me, I figured.

Instead, because I had a significant form of anxiety that neither I nor my parents recognized at the time obsessive compulsive disorder I was convinced that some kind of microscopic creature would be absorbed through my hands and infect every living cell in my body. Maybe it would be bacteria, I thought, or parasites. Or a virus.

That pencil I borrowed from my second-grade classmate? It had to be totally infested. The handle on the drinking fountain? Crawling with germs.

When I took out the trash or cleaned our cat's litter box, my mind raced to strategize which hand I would use to turn on every light switch, open and close each door and carefully lift the lid on the garbage can to minimize my exposure to any kind of contamination.

I got good at using my feet, elbows and any other part of my body that lacked opposable thumbs to avoid touching what I deemed to be the life-threatening surfaces of everyday objects.

Now, 23 years later, those skills that only the most generous would have called "eccentric" in pre-pandemic times are actually useful as I try to keep myself and my immunocompromised housemate my girlfriend safe.

I worry that, to my girlfriend, I look like a frazzled conspiracy theorist as though I'm tracking links and clues on a corkboard filled with pins and ribbons, meticulously tracing every step.

James Dawson

But those skills come at a cost as I try to balance the need to frequently sanitize our home with the need to keep anxiety-driven compulsion at bay.

One in 40 adults and 1 in 100 children in the United States cope with OCD on a daily basis, according to the National Institutes of Mental Health

There are different flavors of OCD with different degrees and different types of obsessions and compulsions, including what people may have seen on the A&E TV show Hoarders. Those who militantly organize their surroundings also might have a touch of it.

One of my symptoms has always been an extreme and focused aversion to contamination, a characteristic I share with an estimated 40% of those who develop OCD, according to Dr. Elias Aboujaoude, a psychiatrist and director of Stanford University's OCD clinic.

As a child, touching anything I thought was covered with germs canceled out the use of that hand until I had a chance to scour it with soap and water. Until then I would hold my hand as far as possible from my torso.

If I didn't perfectly perform these draconian mental gymnastics, I knew without a doubt I was going to die. Maybe not immediately, but probably within a day or two, I thought.

Logic, which seems like it would be the panacea for irrational fears, is actually cruelly twisted back at you with OCD. No matter how much you reassure yourself that the hellscape you dreamed up in your head isn't real, the condition amplifies your fears until you perform whatever fantastic ritual you've created for yourself to alleviate the anxiety.

By the time I turned 9 with cognitive behavioral therapy, persistent practice, as well as a lot of patience and support from my parents I learned to accept the invasive, persistent thoughts for what they were. Just thoughts. Medication also helps cut my base-level anxiety, and it limits the scope of an occasional panic attack.

Today, my OCD is classified as mild to moderate, which means I'm not crippled by anxiety, at least most of the time.

I haven't had a major contamination relapse since 2008 when I was in college. I was convinced for months back then that I needed to always keep whatever food I ate or drank within sight, because I thought it would magically be dosed with LSD. Let's be real, no one would be that generous with their stash.

(That episode ended after I finally got the help of a new therapist after not having seen one for more than a decade).

It's not uncommon for people with well-controlled OCD to experience a small lapse in compulsive behaviors when under great pressure or stress, psychiatrists find, though for many people, full-blown relapses are, as in my case, rare after successful treatment.

Still, the pandemic has been challenging for a lot of us.

Cases of COVID-19 began to spring up in Idaho, where I live, in mid-March. Since then, thousands more cases have appeared.

As we learned the details of how some patients died alone, gasping for air, choking on fluid that fills their lungs like a lock system in a dam I could feel my anxiety rise.

I've been lucky enough to be able to work from home. But I'm suddenly finding my cleaning regimen taking up a not-so-insignificant part of my day.

In the home I share with my girlfriend, I take every precaution I can to maintain a contamination-free zone in the house, just as CDC guidelines recommend, though sometimes I go a little overboard.

High-touch objects such as door knobs, light switches, remotes, faucets and countertops are all disinfected multiple times per day. When a package gets delivered, I handle it like a live grenade. It, too, must be zapped of any trace of this disease that could sneak into our house.

I know where every object in this house has been, whether I've touched it with a finger that has grazed a doorknob that was nicked by the grocery bags that were left on our doorstep, and whether I've recently doused that surface with rubbing alcohol to kill any possible trace of the coronavirus that might have crept in while I wasn't paying attention.

If the gallon and a half of hand soap doesn't run out first, the hand lotion will.

I worry that, to my girlfriend, I look like a frazzled conspiracy theorist as though I'm tracking links and clues on a corkboard filled with pins and ribbons, meticulously tracing every step.

That's not how she sees me, she says. But for her own mental health, she has been leaving the cleaning up to me.

It's stressful for her, too. She knows I don't trust her to decontaminate any delivery or package we receive (and I feel guilty admitting that's true).

While her mind is consumed with concern over the rising global death toll and whether there's any end in sight, my mind is also managing dozens of little internal clocks ticking down the hours, minutes and seconds until every microbe will die on the mail pile or on the cloth seat in my car.

There's a thin line between being hypervigilant and succumbing to my deeper obsessions and compulsions so far I've managed to stay on the right side of that line.

My therapist, who will tell me if I've crossed it, is still accessible by video call, thankfully. I've taken up exercising on our back porch to burn off some of my anxious energy, and that helps.

I've planted my garden full of lettuce, spinach, arugula, fancy purple carrots and radishes. Smelling the rich soil and seeing the vibrant colors of my vegetables transports me away from the day's news and body count.

Heading back inside, I'll think about how delicious all these things I've grown will be to eat in a month or two. But sometimes another thought breaks through, with a slight sense of dread: "Did I wash my hands?"

James Dawson is writer and reporter for Boise Public Radio.

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Staying Safe From The Coronavirus Without Giving In To OCD Obsessions : Shots - Health News - NPR

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We should definitely care about the number of people infected, the hospitalizations and those who have been sick for weeks, but tracking deaths is the starkest way to measure COVID-19s toll on humanity.

That hasnt been as easy as some would expect. And talking about death counts often opens up a whole line of questioning.

How many more people are dying now than otherwise would in a more normal year? Because the virus attacks the elderly and those with preexisting conditions, would those deaths have happened anyway?

As of Saturday, 139 people have died of the virus in Utah, according to the Utah Department of Healths tallies, and more than 115,000 nationwide. How accurate are those counts?

Finally, we know that the disease has made an impact on nearly every aspect of society. Some of those can be deadly: people may put off going to the hospital fearing they would contract the virus there, people might die by suicide at a higher rate because of the isolation caused by social distancing, traffic accidents and homicides might have gone up or down in these unusual times.

Ive wanted to dig into these questions since March, but havent felt really confident in the data until this week. Thats when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention uploaded its latest death reports, which include weekly death tallies separated by cause through May. With that, and a few other sources, we can get an early picture of how this pandemic has really impacted deaths in Utah and nationwide.

First, the caveats: most of the data in this article comes from CDC provisional reports. That means the data hasnt been double-checked yet, and much of the data from recent weeks is unknown. In addition, we should note that the CDC typically estimates that 20% to 30% of death certificates are filled out incorrectly or incompletely.

Still, the CDCs data confirms information we already have and new stats to consider. So with this in hand, lets take a shot at answering those questions.

How are coronavirus deaths tracked?

Every time someone dies in America, a physician, coroner or medical examiner has to fill out a death certificate. For example, heres how the CDC recommends a doctor fill out the death certificate for someone who experienced pneumonia for 10 days as a result of COVID-19.

The highest line item is the immediate cause of death. And in this case, the doctor would put acute respiratory distress syndrome, which the person suffered from for two days. Thats the condition that caused the person to take their last breath. But the thing that first caused the sequence of events is called the underlying cause of death, and typically, thats the thing we care about most. If someone is stabbed, bleeds out and dies, we typically chalk the death up to stabbing and not loss of blood. When COVID-19 is listed on a death certificate, 95% of the time it is listed as the underlying cause of death.

Doctors can put COVID-19 on the form without a positive test, if thats their best guess. For example, if someone had significant exposure to a confirmed COVID-19 case, then died of COVID-19 symptoms, doctors are instructed to put Probable COVID-19 on the form. These are usually tallied with the confirmed coronavirus deaths. In Utah, public health leaders say they test people after they die in an attempt to catch all cases of the virus.

Then, doctors must list any significant conditions that played a role in the death in Part II of the form. That is where heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, or any other contributing factors are placed. Any number of conditions can be put here, but only the ones that played a role in the death in the doctors informed opinion.

These certificates are sent to the National Center of Health Statistics. Because these stats rely on manual entry, they typically lag a few weeks behind the daily coronavirus reports we hear from the counties and states. Some states even take a couple of months to report their data, but Utah is generally relatively quick about it.

How many excess deaths have occurred in Utah and the U.S.?

With the death certificates, the CDC can count the number of deaths in any given week and in any given state and compare them to how many deaths they expected to see the difference is called excess deaths. The CDC uses a well-established method called Farringtons algorithm to estimate death counts using data from recent years to provide an average guess, as well as a 95% confidence interval for that guess.

Overall, there have been a huge number of excess deaths in the United States. From Feb. 1 to May 30, there were an estimated 140,023 extra deaths in the nation.

In Utah, the situation is significantly better than it is in most states. According to the CDCs data, Utahs total number of deaths over the same timeframe was 252 more than expected. However, that number is just inside the confidence intervals margin of error: it is possible, but unlikely, that the extra deaths are a result of a misestimate of the expected number. Only 11 states had a lower excess death number.

Utahs overall death rate is also very low compared to the rest of the nation, ranking 45th in terms of deaths per capita. In terms of case fatality rate, the number of deaths divided by the number of positive cases, Utah is No. 1: only 1% of Utahns who tested positive have died so far. As weve discussed before, Utah has had a higher testing rate than many other states, and its population is younger and healthier than most, which likely plays a big role in a lower death rate.

How many of those excess deaths are due to COVID-19?

The CDC separates the underlying causes of natural death into these categories: cancer, heart diseases, stroke, diabetes, Alzheimers disease, influenza and pneumonia, chronic lower respiratory diseases, kidney diseases, COVID-19, and an other/unknown category.

In the U.S. as a whole, the CDC estimates that between 20,665 and 45,955 of these extra deaths between Feb. 1 and May 30 were caused by something other than COVID-19. Yet, most of these were in the states hardest hit by the pandemic. For example, New York City saw heart attack deaths spike: it is likely that people experiencing a heart attack were less likely to rush to the hospital, and so drastically more of them died.

The good news is that there isnt evidence of similar spikes in the Utah data. Typically, 77 people die every week of diseases of the heart in Utah, according to the CDC, but during the pandemic, 79 people died every week. It wasnt a major difference.

The same is true for other common causes of death, like cancer, diabetes, Alzheimers and strokes. Even for pneumonia or chronic lower respiratory diseases, conditions you can imagine a coroner substituting for COVID-19, the death counts havent changed in Utah the pre- and post-pandemic averages are extremely close, within one or two deaths per week.

What accounts for the other deaths?

Through May 30, Utah had 112 COVID-19 deaths. That explains a big chunk of the 252-ish excess deaths found in the CDC data, but not all of them. If other causes arent spiking, what explains the rest of the increase?

Utah does have a bunch of deaths from April 12 to May 30 in that other/unknown category 169, in fact. In typical times, these unknown deaths are usually updated later to be either deadly accidents requiring investigation or drug overdoses requiring toxicology reports. However, because each death involving COVID-19 has to be manually entered, its possible that some of these are related to the virus. Its also possible that they will be assigned to other causes, and there has just been a delay in categorizing them. In the coming months, well have to watch to see where these deaths get distributed.

Each death is also labeled Natural or not the latter category including homicides, suicides, and accidents. The vast majority of deaths are natural. In the early part of the pandemic, Utahs rate of non-natural deaths declined from 43 per week on average to 36 per week on average.

Some expect a big leap in suicides in Utah, but I dont see evidence of it in this data. For one, suicides are rarely even temporarily labeled as unknown in the death certificate system: theyre reflected in the non-natural data quickly.

And with other aspects of non-natural deaths, we didnt see much change. Crime rates in Utah didnt really decrease during the pandemic compared to the past couple of years, so theres not much change in homicide. And interestingly, car accident fatalities have actually been up this year in Utah, despite having fewer cars on the road. If total non-natural deaths have fallen or stayed stagnant, and other large components have either stayed stagnant or risen a little, its hard to argue that one unknown component, suicides, have risen significantly.

Theres also been no big jump in non-natural deaths nationwide in the past three months, even with deaths from unknown causes potentially taken into account.

In Utah, the average age of those who have died from the coronavirus is 73.9 years, according to the Utah Department of Health. So far, 72.7% of deaths have been from those over 65 years old; 82% of the dead have had at least one preexisting condition. Utahs male to female split hasnt been very wide: 54% of Utahs deaths have been male, 46% have been female.

Understandably, people see these numbers, compare them to life expectancy numbers the average life expectancy in the U.S. is 78 years and figure that COVID-19 is largely killing those who were near death anyway. But most old people have one preexisting condition or another, and once people make it to their 70s, most live quite a while longer. Remember that life expectancy is driven down by people who die when they are relatively young.

One University of Glasgow study took into account the age and preexisting conditions of the dead in the United Kingdom and found that, on average, coronavirus deaths were cutting 13 years off of the life of male victims and 11 years of life off female ones.

The other interesting disparity is that while 51% of Utahs coronavirus cases have come in Salt Lake County so far, 66% of the deaths have come in the county. Theres no disparity in percentage of elderly in Salt Lake County compared with the rest of the state, nor in the numbers of those with preexisting conditions, so its not immediately clear why the death count would be higher in Salt Lake County. However, there have been well-documented outbreaks in some of Salt Lake Countys long-term care facilities in particular, which might explain the difference.

So yes, there are still questions to be answered, with more concrete data to come. But now three months into this crisis, were starting to get a clearer picture on the total effect the virus has had on peoples lives and unfortunately, the end of them.

Andy Larsen is a Tribune sports reporter who covers the Utah Jazz. During this crisis, he has been assigned to dig into the numbers surrounding the coronavirus. You can reach Andy at alarsen@sltrib.com or on Twitter at @andyblarsen.

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Answering the big questions about coronavirus deaths in Utah and the nation - Salt Lake Tribune

Updated at 4:18 p.m.: Revised to include additional counties.

Dallas County reported 345 new cases of the coronavirus Saturday the fourth single-day record it has reported this week and three deaths.

Those who died are an Irving man in his 50s, a Seagoville man in his 60s, and a Mesquite woman in her 90s who was a resident of a long-term care facility.

The county ended the week with its highest seven-day average of daily cases 300 after seeing a record 300 new cases Wednesday, 312 cases Thursday and 328 on Friday.

The county has reported 13,930 cases of COVID-19 and 283 deaths overall. It does not report the number of recoveries.

County Judge Clay Jenkins said in a written statement that while Saturdays cases are another record for a single-day high, increased testing contributes to the increased case count.

He said rising hospitalizations are of greater concern because they are at their highest point since the pandemic began in the county, region and state.

For three consecutive days, Dallas County has reported more than 370 people have been hospitalized with the coronavirus. Hospitalizations for the virus had stayed between 300 and 350 for several weeks.

Think of hospitalizations as the tip of the iceberg, Jenkins said. "There is much more ice under the water out of the hospital and that portion of the iceberg is growing as more and more people get infected from one another.

According to the county, 24% of all emergency-room visits 489 were also for COVID-19 symptoms.

County officials and health experts have focused on hospitalizations, ICU admissions and emergency room visits to determine guidelines for everyday activities during the pandemic.

Jenkins said the rising trends are why people should focus on their health and take precautions such as practicing good hygiene, avoiding large crowds, wearing a mask and maintaining a 6-foot distance from people when outside the home.

There are other important things to focus on, but we cannot take our focus off our health, Jenkins said.

The county reported 133 new coronavirus cases Saturday, raising its total to 7,253.

The county also reported three new deaths: a Hurst man in his 50s, and a Mansfield woman and an Arlington woman both in their 80s. All but one had underlying health conditions.

Tarrant County now has 194 confirmed deaths and 3,110 recoveries.

Collin County had 78 new COVID-19 cases, 17 new recoveries and no additional deaths on Saturday, according to data from the Texas Department of State Health Services.

The county has had a total of 1,638 cases, 37 deaths and 1,288 recoveries.

On Saturday, the county reported 32 new coronavirus cases and four recoveries.

The county has seen a total of 1,719 cases, 36 deaths and 940 recoveries.

The county reported two new coronavirus cases Saturday, raising its total to 235. One case is from Rockwall and the other is from Royse City. One person is younger than 20, the other is in his or her 50s.

There have been 15 deaths all among residents of the Broadmoor Medical Lodge in Rockwall.

County officials said previously that they did not receive an update on recoveries from the state this week because of a change in reporting.

Ellis, Johnson and Kaufman counties have not reported new numbers today. According to Fridays numbers for the counties:

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Dallas County reports record coronavirus cases for the fourth time this week as hospitalizations rise - The Dallas Morning News

The coronavirus stronghold on Oregon could persist at current record-setting case counts or potentially surge to 1,000 new infections a day before the Fourth of July, according to state modeling released Friday.

Oregons top epidemiologist said hes as anxious as hes ever been since the pandemic hit here four months ago.

Thats because the states trajectory suggests many more Oregonians will soon become infected, with the potential to once again overwhelm contact tracers needed to contain spread of the highly communicable virus.

It would be very difficult for us to contain with the same level of attention that wed like to as we open up, Dr. Dean Sidelinger said of 1,000 new cases a day.

So I hope that doesnt happen.

The new modeling paints a dramatically different picture than the forecast of two weeks ago, which used data from before Gov. Kate Brown allowed most Oregon counties to reopen. Officials now say there is clear evidence that transmission has increased since May 15.

Oregons bleak new forecast was one factor that went into Browns last-minute decision late Thursday to block Multnomah County from reopening and to prevent several others from moving into a second phase. Those decisions will be revisited next week, and theres a clear desire to allow Oregons most populous county to reopen in some capacity, if safe.

The forecast comes as Oregons identified infections continue setting daily highs and the number of residents sick enough to be hospitalized rises for the first time in months. Officials earlier this week said it was too early to draw conclusions about the upward trends but conceded by Friday that they were worrisome and warranted pausing reopenings.

Sidelinger, Oregons epidemiologist and health officer, said he recalled being particularly anxious in March when infections first started growing amid limited testing and scarce personal protective equipment.

He was similarly anxious about a month ago, when identified infections again spiked just before counties looked to reopen.

I remain the same way now as we see cases go up, he said.

But Sidelinger said he remains grounded because increasing infections were always anticipated upon reopening, future hospitalizations arent expected to rise as sharply as infections and Oregonians already slowed coronavirus once.

I remain hopeful that we will continue to come together like that, and we will be able to flatten this curve, he said.

Oregons modeling has long shown that Browns stay-at-home order in March reduced cases by 70% of what they could have been, preventing tens of thousands of infections. That forecasting has been regularly updated for planning purposes but officials are now more pessimistic about maintaining such reductions.

The new report used data through June 5, when identified infections were trending up but before they regularly started surpassing 100 a day.

This forecast from June 12 outlines different infection levels.

The best-case scenario outlined Friday seems almost implausible based on whats transpired since then. Its based on a 60% reduction in cases since May 15, assuming rising infections identified earlier this month were an anomaly.

It indicates that roughly 19,000 Oregonians may have been infected by June 5, with only about one-quarter of those actually identified in the official tallies reported by the Oregon Health Authority.

In that scenario, infections would continue to rise slowly, hitting more than 21,000 early next month. Actual infections per day would be about 100 by July 3 a remarkably optimistic number considering Oregon is regularly identifying far more right now.

In a second scenario, based on a 55% reduction in cases, cumulative infections would rise from 20,000 today to about 25,000 early next month. That assumes infections and hospitalizations identified earlier this month were part of a trend.

Under that scenario, daily infections would reach 270 by July 3. That too may be optimistic.

The third scenario and most pessimistic from the state assumed an even lower reduction in infections, essentially down to 45%.

Cumulative cases would jump from about 20,000 now to 35,000 early next month, a huge increase. Daily infections by July 3 could be 1,000 under that scenario.

Sidelinger said officials continue to regularly monitor data while reviewing reopening options weekly so that we can reverse course, I hope, before we get there.

They will continue to advocate for physical distancing and may need to ask Oregonians to voluntarily limit gathering sizes or put more controls on industries or sectors where outbreaks are occurring, Sidelinger said.

Everythings on the table for discussion, he said. Thats why we continue to monitor. Because it would be very hard to handle 1,000 cases a day. And do timely investigation and contact tracing on all of those cases.

Asked whether that could mean the potential to reinstate stay-at-home orders, Sidelinger said: None of us hope to get there. We know that kind of order is devastating, not only financially but also physically and mentally.

Separate from the modeling, Sidelinger also conceded other troubling indicators that have been appearing in the figures reported daily by the state.

Hospital admissions creeped up to 40 statewide last week, an increase of more than 50% from the preceding week. People dont generally require hospitalization until two to three weeks after becoming infected suggesting some people may have been infected at the same time Oregons daily infection numbers showed a rapid decline.

Given that identified infections are now increasing, does that suggest hospitalizations might be high in a few more weeks?

Im definitely concerned that could be a possibility, Sidelinger said.

But he sounded a hopeful note, saying Oregon and officials across the country are seeing a lower need for hospitalizations among workers and younger people who are now being identified with infections.

As we see this large spike, I dont think that were necessarily going to see the same magnitude of increase in the hospitalization, he said.

While maintaining the need to proceed cautiously, Sidelinger also noted pragmatically that Oregons most populous county would not stay closed indefinitely.

Officials will keep close tabs on the data to determine if Multnomah County can safely move forward with reopening as soon as next week.

I dont imagine a future where the rest of the state all has some level of reopening and Multnomah County stays in baseline, behind, he said.

That could mean Multnomah County eventually is cleared for a first phase of reopening or perhaps certain sectors get a green light while others wait, he said.

Officials will also closely monitor statewide hospital admissions, analyze whether infections can be traced back to known sources and watch the ability of public health officials to respond to multiple large outbreaks.

We want to be in a place where we look at the data and can safely move forward, Sidelinger said of continued reopening efforts in Multnomah and elsewhere. Whether thats next week or a week later, I dont know.

-- Brad Schmidt; bschmidt@oregonian.com; 503-294-7628; @_brad_schmidt

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I hope that doesnt happen: 1,000 daily coronavirus infections modeled by Oregon - OregonLive

June 13, 2020, 5:33 PM

7 min read

7 min read

For many free-spirited Americans, a face mask may feel like an uncomfortable blot on personal expression. But as states slowly begin to ease coronavirus restrictions, some medical experts are trying to put a happier face on those coverings -- touting them as a symbol of kindness and a tool in the effort to slow viral spread.

"It is really part of our social contract," said Dr. Lisa Maragakis, senior director of infection prevention at Johns Hopkins University. "It's an act that we're doing to protect other people."

Using masks as an everyday accessory has not come quickly or easily for the nation. Almost from day one, masks have been pushing political buttons.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi sought to lend some old-fashioned machismo to the cloth covering this week.

"Real men wear masks," she declared in her weekly news conference on Thursday.

But on the other side of Pennsylvania Avenue, President Donald Trump seemed to think there was something un-manly about the masks. Even as his own federal health officials began strongly advising their use, he has resisted appearing in public wearing one.

"I didn't want to give the press the pleasure of seeing it," he said recently after appearing at a Detroit auto factory without one before cameras. He reportedly wore one on a private tour of the facility, where masks are required.

Donna Harkness wears a mask with "Trump 2020" printed on it at a demonstration to demand the lifting of restrictions imposed by state and local officials to fight the spread of the coronavirus in Boston, May 30, 2020.

There have been signs the face coverings could be turning into another reason for skirmish in the nation's ongoing culture war, with conservatives like Louisiana Republican Clay Higgins among a small group from Congress resisting the accessory. Higgins went on CNN recently to declare the masks a form of "dehumanization."

"Can you smell through that mask?" he asked. "Then you're not stopping any sort of a virus."

But medical experts have been increasingly vocal in their confidence that face coverings do play an important role, along with social distancing and frequent hand-washing, in keeping the coronavirus from surging across communities.

One new peer-reviewed research paper from the journal of the National Academy of Sciences reported that decisions about mandatory face coverings are central to mitigating the pandemic's impact.

With respiratory droplets being "the dominant route" for the spread of COVID-19, the researchers found that using masks "significantly reduces the number of infections."

The scientists note that other mitigation measures along, even social distancing, "are insufficient by themselves in protecting the public."

Another study, published by The Lancet medical journal earlier this month, also found that masks, in combination with social distancing and hand-washing, could help control the virus's spread.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, arrives for a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, June 4, 2020.

Maragakis said she doesn't believe the material used to make the face covering is as important as keeping airborne droplets from spreading.

"If you have a cloth mask that you've made, or that was made for you, if you've taken a bandana or something to put over your face, that's going to serve that purpose of catching the respiratory droplets," she said.

Even among scientists, though, there is not uniform agreement on benefits of masks and what kinds of masks make a difference.

There is a small faction of infectious disease experts who don't believe there's sufficient data to support the mask wearing as a mandatory complement to social distancing. Dr. Amesh Adalja, of the Infectious Disease Society of America, told ABC News he has yet to see "a lot of direct evidence" to support the recommendation -- especially when those coverings are homemade.

Adalja cited New Zealand, where viral spread has largely dissipated, as a place where the infection was controlled without widespread use of masks.

"I think it's there's a lot of back and forth on this that's going on in a debate in the scientific and medical community," Adalji said. "If you can social distance then technically you don't necessarily need a mask."

Whether scientists can prevent masks from becoming prey in the culture wars remains to be seen. Dr. Jay Bhatt, former medical chief at the American Hospital Association and an ABC News contributor, said he is hoping people from all political persuasions will decide that masks make sense in the midst of this crisis.

"Wearing masks once you step outside your home is a way to keep you, your family and America safe," Bhatt said.

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Scientists try to keep coronavirus masks from being swallowed by culture wars - ABC News

A Colombian Huitoto man sails on a raft along the Takana river in Leticia, Amazonas department, Colombia, on May 20, during the coronavirus pandemic. Tatiana de Nev/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

A Colombian Huitoto man sails on a raft along the Takana river in Leticia, Amazonas department, Colombia, on May 20, during the coronavirus pandemic.

With nearly 40,000 deaths, Brazil has registered the world's third-highest COVID-19 death toll and the second-highest confirmed caseload. Its neighbors fear the disease is spilling across Brazil's borders. Indeed, one Colombian frontier town has already turned into a coronavirus hot spot.

Located at the southern-most tip of Colombia, Leticia is an Amazon River port abutting Brazil and Peru. There are few flights and no roads connecting the town to the rest of Colombia. So, Leticia's 50,000 people get the vast majority of their food and supplies from the neighboring South American countries.

Jess Galdino, the governor of Colombia's Amazonas department or state, which includes Leticia, says this economic reality made it impossible for Colombia to seal its border when the coronavirus began sweeping through Brazil.

In addition, many Colombians live in Tabatinga, a Brazilian town next to Leticia, and they frequently cross to the Colombian side to work, shop or visit relatives. In some neighborhoods, the street forms the dividing line between the two nations.

"It would have been futile to try to set up a blockade," Galdino said in a telephone interview from Leticia. "And with COVID making such a huge impact in Brazil, the number of cases here has also been massive."

Colombian Huitoto Indigenous people pose for a photograph in Leticia. Tatiana de Nev/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Colombian Huitoto Indigenous people pose for a photograph in Leticia.

Now, nearly 2,000 people in and around Leticia are sick with COVID-19. About 70 have died. That might not sound like a colossal death toll at first. But because the surrounding state of Amazonas is sparsely populated, this amounts to the highest per-capita death rate in all of Colombia, according to figures from Colombia's Health Ministry.

Among the first to fall ill in Leticia was Antonio Bolvar, a member of the Ocaina Indigenous tribe and a part-time actor. He became a local celebrity following his starring role in the 2015 movie Embrace of the Serpent, the first-ever Colombian film nominated for an Oscar.

In the movie, set in the early 20th century, Bolvar plays Karamakate, a shaman and the last survivor of an Amazonian tribe who frets that he is losing touch with his culture. He deals with rapacious rubber barons and religious fanatics as he guides a German scientist and, much later, an American botanist through the jungle to find a sacred healing plant.

Antonio Bolvar and director Ciro Guerra at the Academy Awards at Samuel Goldwyn Theater on Feb. 27, 2016, in Beverly Hills, Calif. The film Embrace of the Serpent was nominated in the foreign language category. Omar Vega/Invision/AP hide caption

Antonio Bolvar and director Ciro Guerra at the Academy Awards at Samuel Goldwyn Theater on Feb. 27, 2016, in Beverly Hills, Calif. The film Embrace of the Serpent was nominated in the foreign language category.

In real life, Bolvar was the one who needed to be cured. In April, he came down with a high fever and had had trouble breathing, according to his son, Cristian Bolvar.

"We were treating him with natural medicine," the younger Bolvar says. "But things took a turn for the worse so I called an ambulance to take him to the hospital."

Indigenous people, who make up the bulk of Amazonas' population, are especially vulnerable to COVID-19. Some live on reservations near Leticia and lack Internet access to get information about the disease. What's more, their communal traditions can increase contagion, says Germn Palacio, a university law professor in Leticia.

"It's like a cultural thing. You share with others," Palacio says. "Food. Drinking. Everybody is drinking from the same source, or from the same glass. You put yuca in the middle of your table and everyone shares it."

For those who fall ill there are few options in Leticia. The town should be home to a brand-new public hospital. But corrupt government officials pocketed much of the money and it was never built. In March, three former governors linked to the scandal were jailed.

"The problem is that everyone is dependent on the public health system. But after three decades of corruption, the system is a disaster," Palacio says.

That's apparent at Leticia's 60-year-old public hospital, which lacks basic medical equipment and features a leaking roof and broken sinks and toilets. In April, about 30 of its doctors and nurses resigned over the lack of medical equipment and because they hadn't been paid in months. That prompted federal authorities to intervene and take over management of the hospital. Some of the staff have since returned.

This was the hospital where Cristian Bolvar brought his father, the film actor. But he says doctors there lacked a device to measure the oxygen level in his father's blood. So, he took his father to an expensive private clinic but it was full.

After several more hours lying in the back of an ambulance, Antonio Bolvar was finally taken back to the public hospital where he was admitted.

Four days later, Leticia's movie star died at the age of 75.

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The Coronavirus Is Spreading Through Indigenous Communities In The Amazon - NPR

Residents of Fayetteville, Arkansas, wait in line to file for unemployment on April 6, 2020.

Nick Oxford | Reuters

Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson said on Friday that the state reported 731 new coronavirus cases since Thursday, the largest daily jump since the outbreak began.

The newly reported cases represent a near 6.8% increase compared to Thursday as outbreaks continue across the state, bringing the total to at least 11,547. Hutchinson said 207 of those cases were reported at state correctional facilities.

Its previous highest daily jump in cases was just over 450 in mid-May, according to a graph Hutchinson presented at a press briefing.

"As I look into next week, I do expect the cases to continue to increase," Hutchinson said. "I think that is natural whenever we see the pattern we've seen over the last week, particularly in northwest Arkansas, I expect that to continue to increase until we can get a handle on that and reduce that spread."

Arkansas has more than 3,700 active cases in the state, he said.There are now more than 200 people hospitalized with suspected Covid-19, and the health department reported an additional five deaths since Thursday, bringing the total to 176.

"We've gone over 200 hospitalizations in Arkansas, which is significantly higher than when we were really at what I thought was the first peak in April," Hutchinson said.

Arkansas is one of a handful of states reporting a recent spike in Covid-19 cases. The state is still scheduled to move into its phase two reopening on Monday, which will allow restaurants and other businesses to increase capacity, Hutchinson said.

"I don't see that what we're doing is not working. We might not be doing it well enough. I think the strategy is the right strategy," he said.

The state hasn't seen any evidence that lifting its phase one restrictions had a correlation with an increase in cases but recommends residents continue social distancing, Hutchinson said.

However, Hutchinson said that he wouldn't mandate residents wear a face mask when venturing out in public because it wouldn't be enforceable and "it's just not Arkansas."

Many health experts have said that wearing a face covering can reduce the spread of Covid-19, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests wearing a face covering to reduceasymptomatic transmission among family members and in nursing homes and other facilities.

The CDC warned on Friday that states may need to reimplement the strict social distancing measures that were put in place earlier this year if U.S.coronaviruscases rise "dramatically." However, the agency didn't specify what would be considered a significant increase in cases and it left decision-making up to local areas for now.

"Unless you're in the vulnerable age category or have health conditions, we need to be out, we need to do our business, we need to live life, just do it safely and carefully," Hutchinson said.

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Arkansas reports its highest daily spike in new coronavirus cases, numbers expected to grow - CNBC

Even with theaters scheduled to reopen in July, this will surely be the quietest summer became synonymously with movie-going.

Social distancing will reduce the number of patrons per theater, and nobody knows how consumers will balance their enthusiasm to see these films against health concerns.

Some of that will depend on how different people assess risk. Based on early indications, some have clearly determined that the odds of contracting coronavirus -- and having a bad outcome from it -- aren't that bad.

Nevertheless, the odds of experiencing a shark attack are awfully low, which didn't keep a generation that saw "Jaws" in theaters from eyeing the ocean warily. Such fears aren't always rational, and speaking personally as a kid who had an active imagination, just jumping in a pool that summer felt like an act of courage.

If you're currently apprehensive about venturing out to a confined space with strangers for hours, to paraphrase the tagline from another Steven Spielberg movie, you are not alone.

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'Jaws,' the ultimate summer movie, meets the age of coronavirus - CNN